a-gain. And again. Possibly yet again, though it shouldn’t need to go past the state Supreme Court. But still. Statements within.
House Majority Leader Chris Croft suspended rules to force an emergency vote immediately after the Jan. 28, 2026, House debate on a bathroom bill forcing people to use facilities aligned with their biological sex at birth. The move pushed the bill through immediately instead of waiting one day as is usually required. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — The GOP-led Kansas House and Senate on Wednesday approved a “bathroom bill” targeting transgender people after House Democrats delayed passage by six hours, proposing multiple amendments to set the stage for a possible legal challenge.
House Majority Leader Chris Croft, an Overland Park Republican, called for emergency action to take the vote immediately after debating the bill instead of waiting a day as rules require. House Substitute for Senate Bill 244 passed on an 87-36 vote along party lines, with one Republican opposed.
The Senate concurred with the bill Wednesday evening, voting 30 to 9, also along party lines. The bill will go to Gov. Laura Kelly, who is expected to veto the legislation. It passed both chambers with the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
Democrats fought the bill’s passage in the House, basing their arguments on two primary concepts — that the bill was rushed through the legislative process, giving little time for public input, and that it is an inhumane attack on transgender people.
“This bill spits on basic human decency, and I’m embarrassed we had to spend the entire day trying to defeat this thing,” said Rep. Susan Ruiz, D-Shawnee.
Ruiz also said she believed the bill was targeted at a specific legislator, referring to Rep. Abi Boatman, a Wichita Democrat who is a transgender woman. Boatman was selected to fill a vacant seat in early January.
“I have sat here for five and a half hours and listened to this entire room debate my humanity and my ability to participate in the most basic functions of society,” Boatman said at the close of debate. “From the bottom of my heart, I hope none of you have to ever sit through something like that.”
The legislation would require people to use the bathroom in government buildings that matches their biological sex at birth, rather than their gender, and requires governments to enforce the rule. Both the governmental body and individuals could face steep fines for violating the law.
The bill also requires that the sex listed on a driver’s license and birth certificate match the person’s biological sex at birth.
House Minority Leader Brandon Woodard, D-Lenexa, said in an interview after the House adjourned that the amendments and testimony presented by Democrats throughout the day “gave a lot of fodder” to Kansas courts to make a decision when the case is revived.
During debate, Democrats repeatedly referenced Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach failed attempt in court to ban gender marker changes on driver’s licenses. Woodard said he didn’t think this bill would hold up in court, either.
“As long as Kris Kobach’s our attorney general, I think he’s going to continue to lose in court,” he said.
Rep. Alexis Simmons, D-Topeka, talks about her experience with sexual assault during a Jan. 28, 2026, House debate on a bill to regulate who can use a bathroom in a government building. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
It was a long debate full of emotion, sometimes anger, often frustration. Several times legislators were accused of impugning another legislator, and loud exclamations resonated from both sides of the chamber, including emphatic shouts of “oh, baloney.”
Rep. Alexis Simmons, D-Topeka, said she hadn’t planned to talk about a personal trauma but felt compelled to speak up when she heard others testify about how difficult it would be for women who have been raped to share a bathroom with a man.
She referred to testimony by Rep. Charlotte Esau, R-Olathe, who said the bill protected the “silent” women who are unwilling to speak up about being assaulted and who need women-only spaces to feel safe.
“I’m a victim of a sexual assault and never once did I think it was somebody else’s responsibility to manage my trauma,” Simmons said. “I feel enormous sympathy for victims of trauma, that goes without saying, but I do not appreciate my trauma being used to justify legislation that we know will cause harm to people.”
Simmons said she felt more threatened by men than she had ever felt by a transgender person.
“Here in this building, as an intern, as a committee assistant, as staff and as a legislator, I have been sexually harassed more than you would believe,” she said. “If we’re going to talk about women’s safety, we should address the real trauma, which is how women are treated, not putting the spotlight on one new member of our Legislature.”
Rep. John Carmichael, D-Wichita, rejected claims made by Rep. Susan Humphries, R-Wichita, and Rep. Bob Lewis, R-Garden City, who argued the bill would protect women.
The bill instead will force transgender men, who live as and look like men, to use a woman’s restroom, Carmichael said.
“He is going to sit down at the stall next to your granddaughter,” Carmichael said. “Is that what you really want? Not only that, there are other facilities which have locker rooms or the like. That hairy-faced man will be standing naked, showering next to your daughter. That’s what this bill requires.”
Other legislators spoke about concerns that the bill would embolden people to attack transgender individuals.
Rabbi Moti Rieber, with Kansas Interfaith Action, watched all six hours of debate, his face often grim.
“This bill is a combination of a culture war-obsessed supermajority and a broken legislative process, using every process trick in the book to get unnecessary and harmful legislation into law with no public input,” he said.
Rep. Dan Osman, D-Overland Park, opposes a bathroom bill during a six-hour House debate on Jan. 28, 2026. The bill forces people to use the bathroom that matches their sex at birth. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Throughout the day, Democrats pointed to process problems surrounding the bill. The Judiciary Committee revealed a hearing on House Bill 2426 with less than 24-hour notice. At a later hearing, the bathroom portion of the bill was added with no advance notice and no chance for public input.
Then, in a procedure referred to as “gut and go,” the committee dumped the contents of HB 2426 into Senate Bill 244, which allowed the Senate to simply concur without ever holding a hearing on the overwritten bill.
“Procedurally, it is the absolute worst bill I have ever heard in the Kansas Legislature,” said Rep. Dan Osman, D-Overland Park, who also serves on the Judiciary Committee. “It was done with one purpose and one purpose only — to ensure that the absolute least number of people were available as opponents to this bill and that they were unaware that there would even be a hearing.”
Additionally, there is no fiscal note — a formal notice provided by budget analysts and researchers about how much a bill will cost — for the bathroom provision. That means it is unclear how much local governments could have to pay to ensure they are complying with the law.
Rep. Kirk Haskins, D-Topeka, said he was upset about the rushed schedule and the lack of a fiscal note.
“It upsets me when we rush things through that deal with my constituents, and my constituents, they don’t get a say. That’s what happened here,” he said. “This is a trend. I don’t know what’s going on. Yesterday, we had committee meetings without information. We heard a bill, we didn’t have a proponent, just because we have the power to do it.”
Some legislators focused on details, such as how enforcement would be handled and what would happen if someone violated the bathroom restrictions. Humphries, the Wichita Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said complaints would be made to the governing body if someone suspected a person was using a bathroom that didn’t match their sex at birth.
The bill outlines fines for individuals and also that governing bodies could be held accountable — to fines as high as $25,000 — if they don’t require people to use bathrooms as outlined.
In an interview after the House adjourned, Haskins said he would be comfortable seeing Boatman, as a transgender woman, in the men’s restroom at the Statehouse.
“I’m comfortable with anybody in the restroom,” he said. “I think the bill is based upon fearmongering on issues that are not critical to Kansas, and wherever she wants to go, Rep. Boatman, I’ve got her back.”
This story was originally published by the Kansas Reflector.
Jonathan Larsen Jan 26, 2026
Jan. 26: Minnesota state official tells Attorney General Bondi she can’t have the state’s voter data … Senate Democrats mysteriously imbued with superpower to not vote for funding fascism … Trump declines to cheer federal heroes who saved America from Alex Pretti by murdering him … Poll: More Americans want to abolish ICE than support it …
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon responded Sunday to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s request for the state’s voter rolls. (Uncredited / Steve Simon photo.)
On Saturday, after unidentified federal agents shot a 37-year-old, unarmed nurse to death, Attorney General Pam Bondi reached out to Minnesota state officials … to pressure them.
Bondi blamed Minnesota officials for the unjustified, unprovoked violence committed by federal agents now not under investigation by Bondi’s department. (Bondi’s refusal to investigate Renee Good’s killing by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross led an FBI field office supervisor to quit.)
Bondi implied that federal forces would leave — “bring an end to the chaos” — if Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and other officials would:
On Sunday, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, who has custody and jurisdiction over the voter rolls, issued a statement in response.
“The answer to Attorney General Bondi’s request is no.”
There was more, but I wanted to do that part alone cuz it’s so sexy. Here’s more:
“The law does not give the federal government the authority to obtain this private data. Minnesota is not alone in declining to disclose sensitive personal data on voters. So far, thirty-one other states have said no. …
“It is deeply disturbing that the U.S. Attorney General would make this unlawful request a part of an apparent ransom to pay for our state’s peace and security.
“More broadly, the federal government must end the unprecedented and deadly occupation of our state immediately.”
Wait til Trump officials find out that Simon’s Jewish. (Yes, Bondi is part of the White House Bible study that teaches that the Jews killed Jesus.)
(snip-MORE commentary then some more news on the page. Also you can listen at TFN’s podcast. )
What is shocking is how ill informed some people in the US are. This is part of the dumbing down of the US education system. So many right wing / or maga people are so uneducated and wrong because they believe the misinformation fed them along with the hyper US is always correct and never wrong they are fed by the right wing media that is designed to mislead the maga public ready to accept / follow an authoritarian government meant to make their lives harder while making the lives of the very wealthy even more wealthy. Just listen to the arrogance the person asking the question has even though they are totally incorrect on everything they claim / write to Belle. Hugs
Anti-trans person gets Tim Pool twisted and the conversation verse off the tracks. Tim tries to educate her bigotry but she won’t have it and he knows his teenage boy audience wants to hear hate not explanations of truth. Hugs
Just like maga a small very vocal group of people are demanding the entire country roll back all progress made since the 1950s by minorities. Any new discovery by science no matter the field because it clashes with their holy book which they misread to form their warped view of reality. They do not care to let other others live their lives as they get to live theirs in peace and freedom. No they demand that everyone follow and live by their church doctrines because that way their god will favor them, come back sooner to give them rewards while killing the rest of us. Think of it, these people are OK with creating a situation where the majority die horribly to please his god as long as they get rewarded. Seems selfish to me not Christian. Also another important point is the constant repeating of the Christian surge of republican voters despite it being a lie is to shore up the idea that there was voter fraud that stole the midterms from the republicans. Think of it tRump people used a normal occurrence of vote totals shift as mail in votes are counted as evidence of fraud leading to the Jan 6th insurrection. Below I will post a quote from the article that will be used by republicans to show the democrats stole the midterms. Hugs.
Even as GOP leaders who can read a poll know that the upcoming elections are not looking good for their party, this fantasy of a Christianizing America is leading the everyday MAGA faithful to believe otherwise. A September poll from September shows that 89% of Republicans think their party will win the midterm elections, which is up seven points from April. In fact, the party is forecast to lose seats as its support continues to erode under Trump’s chaotic mismanagement.
https://www.salon.com/2026/01/07/sorry-gop-theres-no-christian-revival/
Republicans are betting the midterms on mass conversions that aren’t happening
Senior WriterA United States and Christian flag are sandwiched together (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Turning Point USA ended 2025 with AmericaFest, a blowout conference for the MAGA powerhouse organization started in 2012 by the now-deceased Charlie Kirk. As described by Teresa Wiltz at POLITICO, “the vibe felt less like a political panel than an evangelical revival.” Watching the speeches from this fireworks-laden shindig, Wiltz’s observation felt like an understatement. Many speeches from the event’s main stage were simply sermons extolling a fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity as the one true faith.“We’re here for one name, and that’s Jesus,” declared Bryce Crawford, a 22-year-old who makes videos of himself accosting strangers, including mentally ill homeless people, under the guise of “winning souls” for Christ. He went on declare that “we’re in the last days” and that every person who doesn’t believe in his version of the gospels will soon “be cast into hell.”
“We’re all on our knees, shoulder to shoulder, under the blood of Christ,” proclaimed the British comedian Russell Brand, who is facing seven charges of sexual assault, including three rape charges, in the United Kingdom. He included Ben Shapiro, by name, in his list of believers, even though Shapiro is Jewish. He then proceeded to insist that Christianity is the key to resolving the conflict between Israel and Gaza, which have primarily Jewish and Muslim populations.
Even rapper Nicki Minaj, newly out as MAGA, understood the primary assignment was talking up Christianity, claiming that she has had “the kind of faith that you think a person is crazy” since she was a little girl.
AmericaFest, as its name implies, is supposed to be a political event, not a church service. By including speakers like Shapiro and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is Hindu, TPUSA’s organizers were even nodding to the idea that the GOP is supposed to believe in religious freedom and diversity. Or, as Vice President JD Vance put it, “We’re all part of the same American family.” Yet he quickly undercut that message by proclaiming that “By the grace of God, we will always be a Christian nation.” While Vance may claim that you don’t have to be a Christian to be an American, implicit in his words is the idea that only Christians are truly Americans, and everyone else is, at best, second class.
The blunt reality is that AmericaFest wasn’t just overtly religious — it was steeped in Christian nationalism. They equated being an American with being a Christian. But being a Republican, as Crawford suggested in his speech, is synonymous with being an evangelical Christian whose main duty is to convert non-believers. The political message of the event was inseparable from a religious one: that the purpose of the GOP and the MAGA movement is to usher in a religious revival and turn a decadent, secular country into one devoted to a narrow, right-wing version of Christianity.
For decades now, the Christian right has been the most powerful and influential force in the GOP, and yet even by their standards, this marked a dramatic shift toward the theocratic impulse. From a purely rational perspective, this is bad politics. Only 23% of Americans identify as evangelicals. Trump was able to win in 2024 only by convincing large numbers of people outside of evangelical Christianity that he has a secular worldview. This was aided by the fact that he quite clearly doesn’t believe all the Christian language, both coded and overt, his aides coax him to say.
The hype at AmericaFest suggests they are pinning their hopes on this imaginary religious awakening to deliver big wins to the Republicans in November’s elections.
But none of that seems to register with MAGA leadership right now. They’ve convinced themselves — or at least are trying to persuade their donors and followers — that the U.S. is undergoing a massive religious revival. Right-wing media has been pushing the view that huge numbers of Americans, especially young Americans, are converting to fundamentalist Christianity. The hype at AmericaFest suggests they are pinning their hopes on this imaginary religious awakening to deliver big wins to the Republicans in November’s elections.
As my colleague Russell Payne and I reported on in November for Salon’s “Standing Room Only,” Fox News in particular has been running a number of stories claiming a “Charlie Kirk effect” — that the MAGA influencer’s killing in September led to a tidal wave of Americans, especially young Americans, discovering or returning to Christianity.
Since then, there’s been a constant drumbeat of similar claims from right-wing media. “Gen Z embracing faith as more young people return to religion,” Fox News declared again on Dec. 21. NewsNation ran a new year segment that reported a “religious revival” was taking place among the young. This follows many similar segments from both channels dating back months, all swearing to their largely elderly audience that the Zoomers are flooding church services, despite what they may be seeing at their own local congregation. Conservative ministers keep insisting on social media that waves of young people are converting, even as no such numbers show up in surveys with more rigorous research methods.
Much of AmericaFest was also devoted to propping up the narrative that young adults are giving up sex and secularism for Christian nationalism in record numbers. Anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, 25, spoke about how Christianity calls on women to “Get married, have babies, have as many as you can and as early in your married life as you can.” Pastor Keenan Clark, 30, preached, “If you have not submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ, though you were a conservative, you will find yourself in the bowels of a devil’s hell.” Angela Halili, 29, and Arielle Reitsma, 36, hosts of the “Girls Gone Bible” podcast, preached about saving sex for marriage because “sexual immorality is the only sin that you commit against your own body.”
The presence of Halili and Reitsma is a big clue that this Christian hype may be rooted in something other than an outpouring of faith. As I reported last year, there’s overwhelming evidence that the two podcast hosts were working as poker girls — women who make money at underground poker games by offering flirting and often much more to male players — while launching a Christian channel devoted to preaching the virtues of chastity to young women. Whatever they personally believe, their entire endeavor is rooted in dishonesty, a sin the Bible tends to have more to say about than sexual “immorality.”
There is no evidence-based reason to believe there’s a religious revival among the young that is about to create massive election windfalls for Republicans. On the contrary, a December report from Pew Research found that, “On average, young adults remain much less religious than older Americans. Today’s young adults also are less religious than young people were a decade ago.”
But there’s little doubt that the kind of people who write massive checks to organizations like TPUSA — wealthy, older Republicans — are very interested in hearing that there’s a religious revival in the U.S. It’s worth remembering that TPUSA began as a secular organization, but in 2020, Kirk started to shift to the Christian nationalist cause, arguing there should be no separation between church and state. With this newly religious agenda, money started to pour into TPUSA. Better yet, Kirk nabbed the support of extremely rich Republicans, with half of TPUSA’s $55 million haul in 2020 coming from 10 anonymous donors. In contrast, the organization raised only $8 million in 2016.
TPUSA and right-wing media aren’t the only groups that have a strong interest in creating the illusion of a mass revival swelling among America’s young. Conservative Christian audiences are notoriously gullible, so there’s a big market out there for attention-seekers and outright grifters to cash in using social media. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are awash in young people claiming they have access to Biblical prophecy or know how to perform exorcisms, or who, like the hosts of “Girls Gone Bible,” pair glamorous packaging with claims that young people are embracing an especially sex-free and fundamentalist Christian faith.
There are various degrees of sincerity in these influencers, yet one thing is undeniable: They are exploiting huge audiences of conservative Christians who want desperately to believe in a religious revival and would rather give their time and money to people who are telling them it’s real than to look at the statistics that show that it’s not.
Between groups like TPUSA, right-wing media outlets and social media influencers, there’s now an entire machinery propping up this false narrative that young people are stampeding into the pews. Even as GOP leaders who can read a poll know that the upcoming elections are not looking good for their party, this fantasy of a Christianizing America is leading the everyday MAGA faithful to believe otherwise. A September poll from September shows that 89% of Republicans think their party will win the midterm elections, which is up seven points from April. In fact, the party is forecast to lose seats as its support continues to erode under Trump’s chaotic mismanagement. But none of that matters: TPUSA is here to take Republicans’ money and sell them a story about how all the kids are coming to Jesus — and to the GOP.
——————————————————————————————————————-By Amanda Marcotte
Amanda Marcotte is a senior politics writer at Salon and the author of “Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself.” Follow her on Bluesky @AmandaMarcotte and sign up for her biweekly politics newsletter, Standing Room Only.
ICE is not following any police procedures or laws. They are disregarding all civil right granted by law or the constitution. ICE white supremacist gang thugs believe they have no restraint or can be held accountable in any way. I see their criminal actions in almost every clip and the way they use their weapons is horribly wrong. I was trained in pepper spray and can tell you that we had to be sprayed to be certified. I can bet none of them did. Because they wouldn’t do it at point-blank range as then it is no longer nonlethal but very lethal. In this clip a woman describes being picked up by ICE and harmed, harassed, taunted, threatened, and she is a citizen. She said ICE had no qualms about detaining her nor harming her. Plus ICE is proudly damaging people’s cars and phones and there is no one to go to for repairment. So the citizen must pay the costs for the ICE thug’s temper tantrums. Land of the free much? Hugs
Links within, and everything. Give it a read-especially the letter!-you’ll enjoy it. -A.
So far, the Justice Department has released only about one percent of the files it has on Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump’s involvement with the serial child molester, and the government’s failure to hold Epstein accountable. It’s the sort of thing Congress should be demanding action on, but the House Oversight Committee was instead planning to spend this week grilling Bill and Hillary Clinton about their long-ago contacts with Epstein, because that would take the spotlight off Trump.
Yesterday, the Clintons sent a scathing four-page letter (New York Times archive link) to committee chair James Comer (R-Kentucky) telling him why they wouldn’t be playing along, arguing that instead of demanding the Justice Department comply with the law requiring release of the Epstein Files, Comer and the Oversight Committee “have prevented progress in discovering the facts about the government’s role.”
You should definitely give the full Clinton letter a read, because it lays out not just why the Clintons won’t go along with Comer’s attempt to shift attention away from Trump and the DOJ’s foot-dragging, but also why this government’s corruption must be resisted wherever possible, from the streets to closed-door hearing rooms. The letter, not from their attorneys but from the Clintons themselves, starts by laying out the unprecedented attacks on the rule of law by Trump’s government, and sums up:
Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences.
For us, now is that time.
The letter also notes, again, that Bill Clinton has repeatedly called for the DOJ to release every last bit of information about him from the Epstein Files, which isn’t exactly what somebody trying to hide something would say. As opposed to, let’s say, a president who has fought every single attempt to release everything.
Separately, the Clintons’ attorneys sent Comer a more conventional letter explaining why they consider the committee’s subpoenas “invalid and legally unenforceable,” which may be useful if Comer follows through on his threat to charge the Clintons with contempt of Congress. But the Clintons’ letter, like Comer’s attempt to drag them before the committee for show, is openly and unabashedly political.
In what may have been a deliberate throwback, the Clinton letter is in good old-fashioned typewriter text (or a digital recreation of it), not a more obvious laser-printed Times New Roman or Arial, as if to suggest that in contrast to a clumsy Twitter message or a random email blast, the IBM Selectric is an elegant communications device for a more civilized age:
While Comer accepted sworn, written declarations from eight other people the committee subpoenaed, he’s only demanded that the Clintons show up in person to be grilled behind closed doors. But no thanks, they write, we aren’t going to help you create a sideshow that detracts from the administration’s stonewalling on releasing the files:
We have tried to give you the little information that we have. We’ve done so because Mr. Epstein’s crimes were horrific. If the Government didn’t do all it could to investigate and prosecute these crimes, for whatever reason, that should be the focus of your work — to learn why and to prevent that from happening ever again. There is no evidence that you are doing so.
Predictably, Comer is now rattling on about charging Bill Clinton with contempt of Congress for not appearing Tuesday, and Hillary as well, since there was little chance she’d show up for her scheduled deposition today. Anticipating that, they basically tell him in the letter, BRING IT:
Despite everything that needs to be done to help our country, you are on the cusp of bringing Congress to a halt to pursue a rarely used process literally designed to result in our imprisonment. This is not the way out of America’s ills, and we will forcefully defend ourselves.
Indeed, bringing the Republicans’ cruel agenda to a standstill while you work harder to pass a contempt charge against us than you have done on your investigation this past year would be our contribution to fighting the madness.
If that’s the direction Comer goes, the letter warns, get ready, because while they’re still willing to testify in a public hearing, the Clintons will also “defend ourselves in the public arena and ensure this country knows exactly why you are doing so, instead of helping the American people who need this Congress’s work and protection.”
The letter closes with another warning, with a nice jab at MAGA obsessions with the perfectly legal and cromulent use of autopens on official documents, which is fun to read in a letter that looks as if it came from a typewriter. (Are the signatures here digital or handwritten, and does anyone care?)
![Screenshot of Clinton letter: 'Continue to mislead Americans about what is truly at stake, and you will learn that Americans are better at finding the truth than you are at burying it. Continue to pursue autopens instead of penning laws Americans need, and you will learn that you are signing away any remaining chance of being on the right side of history. Continue to abet the dismantling of America, and you will learn that it takes more than a wrecking ball to demolish what Americans have built over 250 years. Sincerely, [signatures] Bill Clinton / Hillary Rodham Clinton'](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_WOJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6516cc3d-9699-4259-9e53-77fab75b5f17_747x548.jpeg "Screenshot of Clinton letter: 'Continue to mislead Americans about what is truly at stake, and you will learn that Americans are better at finding the truth than you are at burying it. Continue to pursue autopens instead of penning laws Americans need, and you will learn that you are signing away any remaining chance of being on the right side of history. Continue to abet the dismantling of America, and you will learn that it takes more than a wrecking ball to demolish what Americans have built over 250 years. Sincerely, [signatures] Bill Clinton / Hillary Rodham Clinton'")
It’s a hell of a read, and it matters because unlike all the ways Trump and his sycophants have thrown norms (and the law) under the bus, this letter makes clear that the Clintons are defying the subpoenas not out of contempt, but to highlight that the GOP “investigation” is itself a political act aimed at intimidating Trump’s enemies. This isn’t an attempt to escape answering tough questions — they’ll happily do that in the open and in a sworn written statement. It’s civil disobedience, because this is a goddamned emergency.
Rebecca Solnit writes that we need to see more of this from people whose privilege usually protects them. They could testify in private and ride out the political screeching (neither would be at any risk) but they’re instead saying hell no and courting a contempt charge because it would bring attention to Trump’s crimes:
It’s significant that they’ve come out fighting. This is specifically about James Comer’s attempt to force them to testify about all things Epstein, even as this administration covers up for Epstein’s best friend, refuses to release 95% of the Epstein files, etc. What’s striking here is that the Clintons articulate it’s all of a piece with all the other appalling and lawless things the Trumpists are doing. That these supremely status quo/high status people see themselves as under attack in illegitimate ways and are now fighting back with broad accusations matters, not least because it may shake up some other people with high status/status quo positions, including high up in the Democratic Party.
We also wholeheartedly endorse Solnit’s caution that “I don’t really want or need to hear about why you don’t like the Clintons,” because yes, that conversation has been ongoing for 35 years, but this is something new, and because hey, did you notice the whole building is on fire?
Scottie's Playtime 